New Treatment For Solar Keratoses Now Available In New Zeala

Picato® (ingenol mebutate) gel, a
new innovative topical treatment was launched in New Zealand
yesterday. Picato® gel provides a short dosing duration for
the treatment of solar keratoses (a very common skin
condition).1 Solar keratoses (sometimes referred to as sun
spots) often present as rough, scaly patches predominantly
on skin frequently exposed to the sun, and can lead to
non-melanoma skin cancer if not diagnosed and treated
effectively.2,3 There are approximately 67,000 new cases of
non-melanoma skin cancers in New Zealand each
year.4

Picato® gel is a topical treatment that
patients apply once a day for only two or three days,
depending on the area of the body being treated.1 Other
topical treatments already available can require weeks or
even months of therapy, which patients can find difficult to
adhere to.5,6,7Picato® gel works in two ways: firstly
it kills sun-damaged cells directly. Secondly, it stimulates
the body’s own immune system to remove any remaining
sun-damaged cells.8

Hon. Assoc. Prof. Amanda Oakley,
Waikato Dermatologist and Manager of DermNet New Zealand
website, said: “This is great news for New Zealand, where
the total number of new melanoma and non-melanoma skin
cancer cases amount to around 80% of all new cancers each
year.4 If you have solar keratoses, you have a high risk of
developing a type of non-melanoma skin cancer.9”

The
availability of Picato® gel was announced at an event
yesterday evening in Auckland attended by leading
Dermatologists, skin cancer GPs, other health care
professionals and key people involved in the 15 year
research and development program to bring this new
medication to patients who need it. This launch follows
approval from the New Zealand regulatory authority (Medsafe)
for the treatment of solar keratoses in adults.1

A problem affecting many New
Zealanders

Historically New Zealand has one
of the highest non-melanoma skin cancer incidences in the
world.10 More than 90 per cent of skin cancers are due to
excessive sun exposure in high UV environments such as New
Zealand. UV levels are 40 per cent higher during summer than
at corresponding latitudes in the Northern hemisphere. A
significant proportion of the population has a fair skin
type which burns easily and most New Zealanders have an
outdoor lifestyle and a tendency to ‘seek the
sun’.10,11

Dr Peter Welburn, who was previously
Head of R & D for Peplin and whose team developed Picato®
is thrilled that this new treatment for actinic keratosis is
now being made available to patients in New Zealand. The
approval of this product by MedSafe here in New Zealand
follows similar approvals in the US, Europe, Canada and
Australia.

A New Innovative
Treatment

Picato® gel was discovered in
Australia. This discovery led to the formation of the
Australian company Peplin Biotech, which evaluated the
anti-cancer properties of this compound in conjunction with
the Queensland Institute of Medical Research
(QIMR).

The medication’s active ingredient, ingenol
mebutate, is derived from the plant Euphorbia peplus,
first discovered in 1997 by Australian
scientists.Although Picato® gel is an Australian
invention, NZ dermatologists were involved in some important
early stage clinical research that was conducted
locally.

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